History of Medicine

The Department of History and Philosophy of Science is a major centre for research, teaching and public engagement in history of medicine.

The distinctive feature of our programme is that medical historians work in the largest and most distinguished department of history and philosophy of science in the UK. So students and researchers can both focus on history of medicine and take advantage of intellectual exchange with historians of physical sciences, sociologists and philosophers of science, staff in the Whipple Museum and bioethicists.

Expertise in medical history covers an exceptionally wide range, from antiquity to the present day. We are especially interested in encouraging work on Generation to Reproduction. This is the theme of a Wellcome Trust strategic award held for eight years from 1 October 2009 by a cross-disciplinary group of Cambridge historians of medicine. The research will provide fresh perspectives on issues ranging from ancient fertility rites to IVF. A strongly grounded account, building on a lively field of historical investigation, will offer a fresh basis for policy and public debate.

Congratulations to Jesse Olszynko-GrynJesse Olszynko-Gryn will take up a position as Chancellor's Fellow and Lecturer in Health and Wellbeing Across Time and Place at the University of Strathclyde in October 2018.

Congratulations to Chloë GamlinChloë Gamlin has won the Royal Society of Medicine's Norah Schuster Essay Prize for a piece of work that began as her HPS Part II Dissertation.

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Main image: Plaster model of a human head, 19th century. This model, which can be taken apart, would have been a less gruesome, and cheaper, alternative to human dissection for medical students and teachers. (T50)Image credit: Whipple Museum of the History of Science, University of Cambridge